Safer Cornwall and Devon and Cornwall Police are once again giving the public the opportunity to Have Your Say through a joint survey to measure how safe people feel living in Cornwall, and to identify the issues that concern them most.

The survey results will be compared with last years results and the knowledge gained will be included in the strategic assessment of community safety issues that Safer Cornwall undertakes annually. The Safer Cornwall Strategic Assessment provides a profile of crime and disorder in Cornwall, identifies high-risk people and places, considers future threats and opportunities and the actions that Safer Cornwall and partners are taking to tackle the issues identified.

Members of the public are being encouraged to take part in the survey which is being conducted throughout March. The survey only takes a couple of minutes. You can take the survey online here, or by requesting paper copies of the survey, which are available by calling 0300 1234 232.

Devon and Cornwall Police is promoting a new campaign around sexual consent, which aims to educate and inform young people around what can sometimes be a confusing issue.

The campaign, which targets 16 to 21 year olds, also promotes the message that there are #noblurredlines – sex without consent is rape.

Young people may feel pressured into having sex when they don’t want to or aren’t ready to as a result of peer pressure, fear, lack of knowledge or the consumption of alcohol and/or drugs which clouds their judgement.

Equally, young people, sometimes inexperienced in socialising, can misread or misunderstand the signals being sent out. These issues occur regardless of gender preference.

Detective Inspector Andrea Kingdon, of Devon and Cornwall Police said: “We want to help young people to stay safe and for them to be aware of and understand the issues surrounding consent. We aim to reassure people that it’s their choice whether or not they have sex with someone. We also want clarify when consent has or hasn’t been given. This may be unclear, for example, if they’ve been dating, or had a drink, or if they’ve had sex before. We’re trying to make sure people understand that consent must be given by both parties prior to sex and that sex without consent is rape.

“We also want to let young people know that if they need help or advice about an incident, we have specially trained officers and support agencies who can help them. Devon and Cornwall Police works in partnership with support agencies across the region to provide support for victims.”

John Clements, Independent Chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Safeguarding Children Board added: “It’s vital that young people understand what consent is and that sex without consent is rape. Consent must be freely and positively given. Someone under the heavy influence of alcohol or drugs isn’t capable of giving consent. This campaign will be an important and positive tool for promoting empathy and healthy relationships between young men and women.”

A number of posters and social media messages, with simple and bold designs, have been created to encourage young people to think about whether or not consent has been given to them, or by them, in any given situation. The Force website provides a new ‘good consent guide’ page which provides useful guidance around consent.

A Misuse of Drugs Act warrant has been executed at a farm in the Chumleigh area this morning (Friday 26th February), leading to the seizure of a large amount of cannabis plants.

The warrant stemmed from community intelligence, and officers from Cullompton, Tiverton and Crediton neighbourhood teams along with the Force Support Group and CID

Sergeant Dave MacFadden said: “This is a wonderful result. We were acting directly on community intelligence and we have now seized over a 100 cannabis plants plus other paraphernalia. This is a strong one-team effort, and working directly with the public we have managed a superb result.”

One man is currently helping police with their enquiries and awaits interview.

Alternative education programs are designed for young people with school attendance or disciplinary problems. They are designed to create positive learning environments which encourage school attendance and increased performance. While such programs do not appear to have an effect on delinquency, participants showed positive increases in self-esteems and attitudes towards school.

Therapeutic foster care places youths who cannot live at home due to behavioural problems in a foster home, in which parents receive training to provide a structured environment to promote the learning of prosocial and emotional skills. Overall evidence suggests that therapeutic foster care has reduced crime.

Second responder programmes typically involve a police officer and victim advocate paying a visit to victims of domestic abuse between 24 hours and 14 days after the initial police response. Overall, there is some evidence that second responder programmes have resulted in increased reporting of abuse to the police but they do not appear to have an impact on the likelihood of repeat violence.

In addition, we also now have 212 research projects listed on the Research Map. This is an excellent resource and allows users to see what research is being undertaken and by whom. By clicking on the project you can get a more in-depth description of the work and contact details. And don’t forget, if you or your colleagues are undertaking any research at Masters level and above related to policing or crime reduction you can add it on to the Research Map so that others can see what you are doing.

Do you have colleagues that would like to be kept updated about the What Works Centre for Crime Reduction? Is so, please ask them to contact us with their details and we will add them to our stakeholder list to make sure they get all the latest updates directly.

We will continue to update you with further interventions as they are added over the coming weeks together with a link for ease of access. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in the Crime Reduction Toolkit and What Works Centre for Crime Reduction over the past months and hope you have found the updates useful. We would love to hear from anyone who has used the What Works Centre or Toolkit to help with decision making around reducing crime.

Cornwall Trading Standards has seen a rise in the number of reports of con-men calling at residential properties offering tree surgery work. The tradesmen call without an appointment, the work is substandard and is often charged at a much higher price than a genuine trader would normally charge.

Leanne McLean, Lead Officer for Doorstep Crime said, “When high winds are forecast, we anticipate the amount of cold calls residents receive offering this kind of service, may well increase. Residents should never agree a contract with someone who cold calls them at home. Legitimate businesses do not call without an appointment.”

Remember your rights:

If you agree a contract in your home, you must be given a written cancellation notice detailing a 14 day cooling off period in which you can cancel the contract;

If a trader does not give you a cancellation notice they have committed a criminal offence;

If you want the work to start within the 14 day cooling off period then you have to give the trader written permission;

If you are not given a cancellation notice then you may not have to pay for the work that was done.

Don’t fall foul of the con-men … if you want any work doing to your home or garden get at least three quotes from companies on our Buy With Confidence Trader Approval Scheme or that you have found yourself … NEVER buy from someone selling at your door.

On Wednesday 14th December RAF St Mawgan hosted two Learn2Live events, organised by the Prevention and Road Safety Team to target drivers on the base. Learn2Live is a powerful, thought provoking initiative, designed to target young driver and passenger casualties in Cornwall.

Across the two events, Learn2Live was presented to around 100 members of staff from the RAF, Navy, Military Police and SAS. The Learn2Live programme is based on a short DVD showing a group of friends being involved in a collision and the emergency services arriving. As each agency arrives at the scene, the DVD is paused and a member of that particular emergency service enters the stage to give their chilling account of attending the scene of a road traffic collision.

This is followed by a family member who has lost a loved one in a road traffic collision giving their account of the circumstances of their loss and the devastating affect that this has had on their life.

The programme concludes with a young man called Pete telling his story about how he was involved in a collision, the impact of which will stay with him for the rest of his life.

Tom Rehaag, Fire & Road Safety Advisor, says: “Through Learn 2 Live, young drivers and passengers will witness how a collision occurs, the devastation that follows, and how the lives of all the professionals, and in particular family members, are affected. We hope that through this highly impactful programme young drivers will think about the facts, consequences, and what they can do in order to avoid being involved in a road traffic collision.

Children from St Neot Community Primary School helped Cornwall Council Prevention, Protection and Road Safety Team to celebrate this year’s Twilight Trail, which involves a twilight walk with a twist!

Twilight Trails aim to educate children about the importance of wearing fluorescent and reflective clothing in poor light and at night to ensure that they are more visible to other road users.

The event, which took place in the extensive school grounds, started with an evening meeting at the school, during which Fire & Road Safety Advisors gave a brief presentation about the importance of wearing fluorescent and reflective clothing when out on the roads at night or in poor light.

With a torch and a reflective tabard each, the children were taken along a dark route where they were able to discover all kinds of reflective items concealed in hedges, trees and undergrowth.

During the walk team members explained how the torches cause the reflective material to shine just as a reflector would react when caught in a vehicle’s headlights.

Cathy Cotton, Teaching Assistant at St Neot Community Primary School says: 2We were very pleased to be approached to host a Twilight Trail to help children to understand the Be Safe and Be Seen message. Living in a rural area it is important that the children understand the importance of wearing reflective clothing to increase their visibility and safety.”

Without reflective clothing or items a pedestrian or cyclist is only visible, in dipped headlights, from 30 metres away. By wearing or using reflective items they become visible at 150 metres, giving drivers five times the distance to notice them and, more importantly, avoid them.

Tamsin Ferris, Fire & Road Safety Officer says: “Twilight Trails are an incredibly visual and interactive method of helping children to learn that reflective and fluorescent clothing will greatly increase their visibility when out on the roads in poor light. A fun activity such as a Twilight Trail helps the children to retain the vital road safety message of Be Safe and Be Seen.”

In recent years there have been a number of tragic adult pedestrian deaths on dark roads. So the message is vital for everybody: consider wearing or carrying something bright if you have to walk along the road at night.

December 2015 marked the first anniversary of the use of volunteers to help support the work of Trading Standards in raising awareness of scams, doorstep crime and other consumer related issues in Cornwall.

In the last 12 months, the volunteers have carried out around 100 visits to vulnerable scam victims across the county, in addition to providing face to face advice on a range of consumer issues at local banks, day centres and local events.

Nigel Strick, Fair Trading Team Manager said “We are delighted to receive such great support from our volunteers. Their willingness to invest their valuable time provides an enormous benefit to us in helping to combat the continual threat of scams and consumer crime that blight the lives of so many in our communities.”

A key part of the work undertaken by the volunteers relates to home visits to potential scam victims, as part of the National Scams Hub project. These individuals are identified from so-called ‘suckers’ lists that have been seized from scammers. The service is aware of at least 1600 individuals who are known to have been targeted by scams within Cornwall.

The purpose of the visit is to better understand the impact of scams and to help the victim break a detrimental cycle, which over time can lead to serious financial loss, as well as deterioration in the person’s health and wellbeing.